Five Good Covers Archives - Page 2 of 42

Five Good Covers: “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (Kris Kristofferson)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 3:00 pm 3 Responses »

Oct 042024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

Help Me Make It Through the Night covers

Kris Kristofferson’s resume may be one of the most remarkable documents of 20th century music. With his passing earlier this week at the age of 88, it was de rigueur for all In Memoriam pieces to bring it up. The man was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a Golden Gloves boxer, and a prizewinning short story writer. He was a US Army veteran, a helicopter pilot, and an award-winning actor. He could quote William Blake from memory, and he could rip Toby Keith a blistered new one. And, of course, he gifted the world with truly classic songs, plain poetry that dazzled in its simplicity and its emotional heft. He truly was, as he wrote in “The Pilgrim Chapter 33,” a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.

“I’m for anything that gets you through the night,” said Frank Sinatra in a 1963 interview with Playboy, “be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.” Kristofferson, struggling to finish writing a song in the Gulf of Mexico, came back to that line and used it as the linchpin for “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” The song was about a one-night stand and therefore wore controversy on its back like a target. But the words were so plainspoken and intimate, the need far more naked than the girl, that people fell over themselves running to cover the story of a man all alone with his heart, no matter who else was in the room.

Five Good Covers: “Sixteen Tons” (Merle Travis / Tennessee Ernie Ford)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 2:00 pm 3 Responses »

Sep 132024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

Merle Travis may have brought “Sixteen Tons” into the world, but it was Tennessee Ernie Ford who made it immortal. The song’s arrangement – clarinets didn’t often get the spotlight, but one sure did here – was spare and distinctive. Ford’s bass baritone and his finger-snapping, both casual and menacing, hooked listeners in both the pop and country worlds, taking the song to number one on both charts. In a 1960 TV appearance together, Travis told Ford, “The song never amounted to much until you sung it.” Ford replied, “I never amounted to much until I sung it, either.”

Five Good Covers: “Light My Fire” (The Doors)

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm 2 Responses »

Aug 232024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

Just what is is about the songs of the ’60s that gives them such legs? Are they that amazingly good? Did they appear on enough soundtracks that they embedded themselves in my brainpan? Or is that just my fantasy, born out of a familiarity as long as the life of the songs?

“Light My Fire.” Perfect example. The song started life in L.A.s proto-underground, written and performed by the Doors, one of many groups plying their trade on the strip at the bars, seedy and otherwise, dotted along its trajectory. Jak Holzman, president of Elektra Records (they’d signed the Doors’ friendly rivals Love), liked what he heard enough to give them a contract. Shortly after, they moved to the studio, recording “Light My Fire” and the rest of their debut and eponymous album fifty-eight years ago this week.

Released in April of 1967, in an edit of the full-length version, the “Light My Fire” single spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard chart, getting a further boost when Jose Feliciano delivered the first cover, itself a top-five hit. Over the years, that original version has seen it regularly populate various best-of lists, helping it attain platinum sales by 2018.

Via many of the saccharine cover versions that followed swift behind the Doors’ own rendition, arguably the plight of any perfect song construction, it has been latterly seen as some MOR staple, slipping further and further away from the original menace inherent. Pity. Second Hand Songs shows upwards of 310 versions, and not all of these are weird, cheesy cabaret staples. (You want cheesy? Try Nancy Sinatra, or Shirley Bassey, or the New Jordal Swingers. You want weird? Well, you couldn’t get much weirder than Mae West……) Thankfully, we found five that are not.
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Five Good Covers: “Don’t Stop” (Fleetwood Mac)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 11:00 am No Responses »

Aug 022024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

“It doesn’t sound that great when I’m singing it myself. Why don’t we make it a duet?”

According to Ken Caillat, producer of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, when Christine McVie said that to Lindsey Buckingham, it proved to be the key to making “Don’t Stop” the song it is today. With the two of them exchanging vocals, compressed so much they almost sounded alike, and McVie playing a jaunty tack piano, they make the song so uplifting you’d never know it was about the end of Christine’s relationship with bassist John McVie. The Guardian called it one of the band’s five best songs, saying that “its cantering rhythm and chorus are so impossibly, infectiously buoyant, the song so flawless, that it cancels out the unhappiness that provoked it.”
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Five Good Covers: “Hush” (Deep Purple)

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Jul 192024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

Well, actually not Deep Purple’s “Hush” at all, even if that is the version that cuts most traction. It’s also the only song that lingers from the pre-Gillan iteration of the UK titans, from when they were carved in soap rather than rock. The learned and erudite know that it was written by Joe South, that doyen of southern soul, but it isn’t even Joe South’s “Hush,” as he didn’t get around to putting it out, himself, until two years after the first recorded version, itself a year ahead the Purps. That honor went to Billy Joe Royal, a recording artist for Royal Records, where South was then a jobbing songsmith. Indeed, “Down In The Boondocks,” Royal’s biggest chart success, was also a South composition. But “Hush,” from Billy Joe Royal Featuring Hush, in 1967, did not chart.

However, Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist for Deep Purple, heard that version. He would later tell Vintage Guitar Magazine, “I thought it was a great song, and I also thought it would be a good song to add to our act, if we could come up with a different arrangement…. We did the whole song in two takes.” Despite being a British band, it bombed at home, but soared in the States, reaching number four on the Billboard chart, effectively making their name, even if the singer and bassist were shortly to step aside. Most UK listeners had to wait until the band re-recorded the song, with their new line-up, in 1984.

Irrespective of all that, Blackmore is quite correct in his assertion as to the greatness of the song, and it has racked up a roster of cover versions. Here are the best five, at least today. (Please note this does not include the version by Kula Shaker, as, regardless of the red-blooded interpretation, it is all rather too much in thrall to the Deeps, as I will this time call them, struggling to find a suitably uniform diminutive.)
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Five Good Covers: “A Girl Like You” (Edwyn Collins)

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Jul 052024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

The United Kingdom woke up to a new Prime Minister on Friday. We don’t yet know what kind of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will be, but we know a little of his music tastes, thanks to a recent profile: “His music tastes are lodged in the mid-80s – Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, Edwyn Collins.” Edwyn Collins?

“Edwyn Collins’s tart cocktail of self-deprecation and self-assurance.” Pete Paphides’ beautiful, magnificent book Broken Greek is a love letter to the music that moves him, regardless of whether it does so for anyone else, or even if others in vast numbers appreciate it. He is not a snob. His musical awakening took place in the late ’70s or early ’80s, so we get some wonderful prose about Orange Juice, the band that Edwyn Collins led before his solo career. Orange Juice’s small output, and fewer hits, nevertheless had a disproportionate influence on music in Scotland and beyond. A recent history and museum exhibit of Scottish pop was named “Rip It Up” after the band’s best-known single. Edwyn Collins had something about him, a big fish in a small Scottish Loch.

After Orange Juice split, Collins continued to be a vital cog in the machine of the Scottish music scene. He produced creditable collaborations with, for instance, Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera. All recognized his talent, not least himself, but it did not always translate itself to hits.

That changed in 1995 with the release of “A Girl Like You.” The worldwide hit encompasses a remarkable range of Collins’ skills and influences. Those who studied the success of the UK dance phenomenon Northern Soul identified that 121bpm is the most danceable pace for music, leading to dozens of hits at that exact pace in the charts of the ’90s. This song cleaves close to that ideal, and even samples a sixties soul classic.

But there is more. Collins uses a B&M Fuzzbox to achieve the distinctive riff, but enhances the refrain with a clean-sounding vibraphone. Sex Pistol Paul Cook played the drums that are not part of the four-on-the-floor sample. It is a sophisticated musical confection, worthy of the finest Viennese Patisserie. And then there are the lyrics, which add a layer of universality. Who has not started a romance with the belief that their partner is unique? With an unparalleled set of lovely traits, never combined in a single, heavenly creation. That moves everyone.

The song managed to conquer several markets, and chart in many more. It was helped on its way, curiously, by featuring on the critically mauled but subsequently cult film Empire Records. The lyrical message and place in time have enabled it to feature in several more films and TV shows, and have kept the song in the imagination and indie channel playlists ever since.

In 2005 Collins suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, and was near death, and the after-effects of that illness have affected him ever since. However, with the love and support of his family, he returned to music making, including live performances, where his talent and self-belief continue to shine through.

His best-known legacy has spawned many covers; here are Five of the Best of them.
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